Stearman confirms spitting incident

Wolves right-back Richard Stearman has confirmed he was spat on by Wigan defender Antolin Alcaraz during his side's crucial 3-1 win at Molineux on Sunday.

The incident occurred in the 83rd minute and sparked a brawl involving several players from each team. Referee Lee Probert took no action and it was initially thought that Alcaraz had spat at Wolves centre-back Christophe Berra.

Stearman was reluctant to comment but admitted: "It wasn't Berra, I'll give you that, but I don't think it's right for me to talk about it at the moment." But when he was asked if he was spat upon he replied: "Yes, but I'm not going to speak about it."

He added: "I can confirm it happened and that it was me rather than Berra. I'll let other people talk about it and let other people deal with it. I won't push for anything, it's one of those things - but it's not nice."

Wolves boss Mick McCarthy was more forthcoming with his opinion on the alleged incident, and said: "Spitting is taboo if that's what happened. I only had it happen to me once and the player didn't come too close to me for a long time after that. If it has been shown, that is unacceptable behaviour and anyone here who was spat at would act accordingly. If that has happened, he shouldn't be doing it."

Wigan boss Roberto Martinez was reluctant to speak on the matter, and said: "I haven't seen it yet (the replays). If that is the case, I'll look into it and I'll find out."

Wolves secured their first win in nine games thanks to goals from Jamie O'Hara, Edwards and Stephen Ward with Ben Watson replying for the Latics with a follow-up strike after his penalty and been saved, and McCarthy praised the reaction of the fans who had booed him during the previous home league game with Swansea.

He said: "It all looks different with one win and we knew that would be the case. But it was much needed. We can't keep going on saying we did alright. You've got to win a game and the one we needed to win was against Wigan. What pleased me most was the reaction after we had taken the lead and then conceded a penalty. It was the great togetherness of the place. The crowd were brilliant."

Wigan paid for missing a host of chances as they slumped to an eighth successive defeat and Martinez said: "We couldn't get properly going. We allowed the first goal to affect all the performance too much. We had a great chance in a one v one situation (from Hugo Rodallega).

"We usually take those and then they went up the other end and scored a little bit of a soft goal. From then on it it seemed the day was going into Wolves' hands which was a little bit disappointing."